~6.5~

“Wait… this is about a library card?” the man said.

“Yes,” the woman said. “They will not give me one if I cannot prove that I am a resident.”

“Maybe I missed a Tea Party victory somewhere, but I don’t think you have to have proof of citizenship in order to get a library card,” the man said. “You just to to show them something with your address on it. Bills or something.”

“I don’t have bills,” the woman said. “And the new librarian said that I needed a picture ID with my address on it. Otherwise I will have to pay a fee.”

“I don’t know how much the library charges for a card, but it can’t be nearly as much as a fake ID would set you back.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter how much it costs. I don’t have any money.”

“Then how were you planning on paying for the ID?” the man asked.

“I wasn’t… I didn’t know how this worked. I’ve never needed an ID before,” she said. “The library used to be open at night, I could go in there and read for hours. Nobody ever bothered me… the old librarians were nice, or else they left me alone.”

“And you’ve never had an ID?” the man asked. “At all?

“I’ve never needed to prove who I am before,” she said. “Or where I live.”

“Do you live on the street?” the man asked.

“No, not on the street,” she said. “On the stairs.”

“On the stairs?”

“Well, I suppose it’s more like a pedestal of sorts,” she said. “Next to the stairs.”

The man looked at her.

“You’re not… you’re…”

“What?” she asked.

“Are you… are you human?” he asked.

She looked at him the way he would have expected anyone to react to such a question: as if it were insulting, but also so incredibly absurd on the face of it that it was hard to take the insult seriously.

“No,” she said. “Of course not.”